Gever Tully was fortunate to grow up in a world full of possibilities and adventures. He and his big brother were free to explore their environment and invent their own projects while growing up in the wide-open rural environs of Northern California and interior British Columbia. Their curiosity was encouraged by their parents, who instilled early on a sensible approach to their experiments. Gever's famous rule while babysitting: "If you're going to play with fire, be sure to do it outside." (Note that this was in the ever-wet yards of coastal Northern California, not the tinder-dry inland desert!) In 2005, Gever founded Tinkering School to teach kids how to build things. He created the school since he believes we all learn by fooling around. Grand schemes, wild ideas, crazy notions, and intuitive leaps of imagination are, of course, encouraged and fertilized. After years of creating playful hands-on projects for kids of all ages, Gever wanted to share with a wider audience the discovery that comes from this directed "fooling around." Fifty Dangerous Things (you should let your children do) is his first book on the subject.
Julie Spiegler is a project manager and editor who has collaborated with Tulley on virtually all of his projects.
